1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a matrixed method for serial attached SCSI (SAS) fabric management, and particularly to a user being provided with a graphical dynamic matrix table, which illustrates a plurality of matrixed cells corresponding to a plurality of zone groups in a one-to-one relationship. The matrixed cells are organized as a graphical dynamic table on an X-axis and a Y-axis. The table is a packed table, meaning the X and Y-axes only display populated (or active) zone groups. Populated (or active) zone groups are defined as zone groups that contain at least one port. The user can modify the zoning configuration by left clicking the appropriate matrixed cell to toggle between states. There are four states ‘mutual access’, ‘previous mutual access’, ‘proposed mutual access’, and ‘no access’.
2. Description of Background
Storage Area Network (SAN) is a high-speed sub network of host servers and shared storage devices. A storage device is a machine that contains a controller card or controller cards, and a disk or disks for storing data.
A SAN's architecture works in a way that makes all storage devices available to all servers on an interconnect of storage and host servers, typically comprised of specialized switches specifically designed for routing I/O data traffic. As storage devices are added to a SAN, they are accessible from any server in the larger network. In this case, the server merely acts as a pathway between the end user and the stored data.
Because stored data does not reside directly on any of a network's servers, server power is utilized for business applications, and network capacity is released to the end user.
Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is an evolution of parallel SCSI into a point-to-point serial peripheral interface in which controllers are linked directly to disk drives. SAS is a performance improvement over traditional SCSI because SAS enables multiple devices (up to 128) of different sizes and types to be connected simultaneously with thinner and longer cables; its full-duplex signal transmission supports 3.0 Gb/s. In addition, SAS drives can be hot-plugged.
In topologies with more than two connected devices, SAS calls for the use of expander devices to allow for one or more hosts to connect to one or more peripherals.
SAS devices can communicate with both serial-ATA (SATA) and SCSI devices (the backplanes of SAS devices are identical to SATA devices). A key difference between SCSI and SAS devices is the addition in SAS devices of two data ports, each of which resides in a different SAS domain. This enables complete failover redundancy as if one path fails; there is still communication along a separate and independent path. The devices typically communicated by way of Serial Attached Small Computer System Interface (SAS) protocol.
The configuration and management of such networking and storage device topology can be difficult. Current graphical user interface methods for SAS fabric management don't show the configurations in an easy, intuitive manner. In this regard, SAS fabric management is challenging in that unlike Fibre Channel zoning it requires an additional layer of indirection. In other words, it requires the additional concept of a zone group. All of which gives rise to a long felt need for the present invention.